Theresa is a wonderful woman. She’s open and honest, one of the most caring people I have ever met. But she idolizes me. Now, I understand that sometimes that can be a good thing. In fact, it made our early romance seem soul connecting and the first time we made love as man and wife was earth shattering, but still I feel as if the love she has is only infatuation. I’ve seen the books she used to have, pictures of me from all through the years. Articles filling volumes upon volumes on her bookshelves and even though we’re married she still collects the pages and glues them down, covering them in the plastic.

“You’re my own celebrity, darling. I have a chronicle of your life before me and now your life with me,” she says when I ask her about the books. She thinks that the ground I walk on is holy, treasures almost everything I touch.

She even has the very first rose I gave her, dried and hair sprayed, displayed proudly beside our bed.

It’s almost as if she’s some stalker and not the woman I married. The woman I adore.

Now I do love Theresa. As I said, she’s a wonderful woman and quite frankly a darling wife. I know that the love I give her is beyond explainable. She feels the love constantly and I’m always showing her that I love her. Every smile I give her means the world. A simple note can light up her day. A kiss makes her weep. Then again everything makes her weep. She cries rather easily, always has. I find that endearing sometimes…

Sometimes!

And sometimes it really irks me to see those salty tears slowly roll down her tanned cheeks. Her face contorted in pain and disappointment…and sometimes happiness. Lord knows it’s hard to tell sometimes. But those tears fall from her beautiful brown eyes and I can’t stand to see them water anymore, especially because I know I’ve let her down.

It doesn’t matter that ninety percent of the time those big brown orbs shine with love for me, that they hold such devotion and joy when I enter a room. I’m her everything. She’s professed that…

Repeatedly in fact…

But still, something is disconcerting by her incessant tears and need to tell me just how much she loves me. I love her just as much, but I don’t find the need to remind her every single second of every day!

I guess what worries me most is the fact that she loves me so much that she puts me on this pedestal and I can’t seem to get down. It’s something like those toys that parents collect for their kids. They stick them on a shelf to maintain the pristine beauty of the object and hope that one day it can be sold for quite a sum. The beauty of the item isn’t lost on the child, but the fact that it’s a toy, something they want, is too hard to push aside. You want to take it down and play with it, but you know you can’t. It’s so perfect that it’s almost intangible. For years I was that to her. That unattainable entity that was so close she could feel it but still couldn’t take hold.

Now I’m just afraid that after two years of marriage, two years of her being able to have what she’s always wanted, the marble pedestal will collapse. It will crumble into tiny little pieces in her hands and while I won’t be hurt she will.

That’s the most frightening part…

Sitting at our desk I realize that what Luis once told me is true. Theresa is a dreamer. She always has these big ideas and goals, things that even I can’t fathom. She seems to think that the world is easily tamed; that people accept things just because she does. When she seems something that upsets her, she simply wishes it away. Pretends it never happened. It’s frustrating. It makes me think that she’s living in a fairytale. Like some princess that just won the prince, she floats around in this bubble of a world.

But what happens when the bubble pops?

When the world falls apart around her?

When the fairytale ends with something other than happily ever after?

What happens when she sees that I’m not the prince from her fairytales? That I’m not a super hero that could save her life? She seems to think that I am. Theresa sees me as more than a man, almost a god, and it’s freakishly frightening. She forgets that I err, that I eat and sleep and move just like she. I’ve tried repeatedly to get that point through to her, but she just seems to be oblivious.

A sever case of in one ear and out the other.

I life my pen and begin to scroll a letter down on the paper. Tonight is the night…

I’m blessed that she feels so close to me. That everything I do, every word I say gives her strength to continue on. I felt terrible when she had a miscarriage earlier in the year. As much as I wasn’t ready for a child I didn’t want her to suffer and lose our baby. I stayed strong for her. I loved her through it. I even managed to hide my tears and pain. She found strength, she moved on and now she only remembers the time fleetingly, barely shedding a tear over it.

And I feel truly and honestly blessed that she never saw my weakness…

That my presence gave her strength…

I’m only sorry that it couldn’t last longer.

Tonight will be the last time Theresa feels my kiss in her hair or on her lips. The last time she’ll feel my presence in the room. I leave the letter on the pillow beside her, grabbing the bag I packed when I first arrived home. I don’t plan on returning…Ever.

As much as I love her, I can’t be here to see the pain in her eyes when she realizes that I am not what she thought I was. That I’m still just a man, that I have needs like everyone else. I can’t be here when she sees that I can’t solve things with a wave of my hand or with my word. I don’t have power, I don’t have money and I don’t have the right to be the man she loves. I want her to remember me this way…

To love me this way…

To only know me this way…

I close the door behind me as I leave, locking it and allowing my touch to linger only a second as the cold rain pelts my body. This is for the best; it’s the only way I can preserve the dreams and ideas of a girl that was too much in love to see the truth.

I’m only a man and I don’t want to disappoint her. I love her so much that I would rather leave before she finds out the truth than be there to witness reality…

Sadly, I realize that she’ll always love me…

That deep down inside I’ll always be there with her and she’ll always be with me.

And still I leave, walking away from the house, from our dreams and from the heart that I’ll remain in forever…